The present invention relates to fixtures for testing closure members on vehicles, such as hood assemblies, and more particularly relates to a fixture adapted to test the durability of a grille attached to a hood assembly, though the present inventive concepts are not limited to only testing grilles and hood assemblies.
Grilles are sometimes mounted along a front edge of hoods on modern vehicles. This can save parts, facilitate vehicle assembly by allowing subassembly separate from the vehicle assembly line, and further provide a more open engine compartment and open area in a front of the vehicle. However, in this position, the grilles experience substantial stress as the hoods are closed, especially when the hoods are slammed shut, such that the grilles may crack and fail over time. At least one vehicle manufacturer has recently begun to specify that the hood-mounted grilles not fail after a certain number of hood-closing cycles. However, hoods and prototype vehicles are not available for testing grilles until late in a vehicle development program, such that it is difficult to make a realistic test. Concurrently, early attempts to simulate the stress induced in hood-mounted grilles upon a hood slam have tended to be “home-made” and non-repeatable. Thus, if a grille supplier company really wanted something resembling a realistic test, they had to wait for an actual prototype hood, which as noted above isn't usually available until late in a vehicle development program. This puts tremendous pressure on the grille manufacturers, because they don't know if their grille is structurally acceptable until late in the development program and potentially “too late” to make significant tooling changes on a non-rush basis.
In addition to the above, it is desirable to provide an adjustable hood slam fixture capable of replicating stresses and cycles on grilles and hood assemblies in different environments (e.g. cold or hot environments) and/or for testing on different vehicle models (e.g. adjustable to simulate their different suspensions, tire styles, pressures, vehicle mass weights, hood hinge and latching devices, and front-of-vehicle frame and body structures).
Accordingly a fixture solving the aforementioned problems and having the aforementioned advantages is desired.